LECTURE THREE
EDITING AND MONTAGE
(Check “terms” on the website for a “glossary of film terms”)
Frame: two meanings:
Take: The number of time the same shot is made
Scene some piece with unity usually in one place
MISE EN SCENE
Much of his is true for theater, but once camera is added new dimensions appear.
Mise en scene includes setting, things photographed (usually actors) , composition, arrangement of the settings, lighting and subjects.
Settings
Set: constructed and may reflect much of psychological nature of place relative to performers, performance and acting.
location outside of studio.
Framing
How much is shown in FRAME? Loose (a good deal is shown - medium and distant shots; and tight framing (less is shown - close ups)
Some directors like only sets – easier to control things
Composition
number of people in frame
Distance to Subject
Composition
Symmetrical or asymmetrical
Focus
Camera Movement
RELATIOSHIPBETWEEN FRAMES
Psychological unity from one frame to the next.
Bazin championed this and opposed montage which he felt broke the unity between frames.
Syntax is a term which is used by grammarians to discuss how words and sentences are formed. For example in English we add the plural marker after the noun so cat becomes cats.
A word “sing” which means “to vocalize: can become “singer” by the addition of a piece “–er” which means “one who”. It is also found on words like “dancer” “farmer” and “baker” as well as many, many others. To “singer” we might add “less” (as in “penniless”) to produce “singerless”. “After the singer quit the orchestra was singerless for two months”. One can even envion such a monstrosity as “singerlessly”. Image a song which has a vocal, but the orchestra is going to do just an orchestral version – that is they will perform it “singerlessly”. While this last may be a kind of abomination, English speakers would understand it. They would not understand “lesslyersing”.
In sentence structure there are problems of agreement (i.e. “The cat eats” as opposed to “The cats eat”) A third person singular subject requires the verb have an “s” attached to it. When the subject is anything but a third person singular the “s” is not affixed.
These kinds of relations in syntax a called syntagmatic relations.
In films, there is a similar kind of problem – how are scenes connected to one another. Although the requirements are not as rigid, we do find that the way in which scenes are connected affects the meaning of the scenes.
Eisenstein’s five kinds off “montage”
Examples of montages and parallel edits can cults
Cuts between slaughter of people and slaughter of animals
Cuts between Capt. Willard (Martin Sheen) killing of Col. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) and natives ritually sacrificing bull. Purpose: Link the two killings and causes viewer to see them as sacrifical
Cut from Heston making speech to billboard about gun show, to Heston making speech. Sound track ties two speeches together (sound of crowd is continuous.
Purpose: So that the viewer doesn’t notice that Heston has changed clothes and background and the two pieces shown are from different speeches months apart.
Cuts between ink flowing down map of section of town with “blood” in the town
Purpose: To make viewer equate slaughter of people with slaughter of animals.